The Rampart, The Traffic Artery, and the Park; Designing for the city regions of Antwerp
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges. Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
Through a close reading of Antwerp’s current spatial and socio-economic composition, and the introduction of the interplay between the city’s three defining paradigms – abstracted to ‘The Rampart, the Traffic Artery, and the Park’ – this study tries to sketch a unifying strategy for Antwerp’s metropole. A strategy that embeds residential, economic, cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical motives within the different city regions. Thereby improving the connection between the left and right side of the river; transitioning the suburban region to a more polycentric structure while maintaining a spatial relation to the city; and explicitly manages the horizontal growth of the periphery. But that most importantly, captures the metropole in a single narrative from its inner-city to its outer edges.
Graduation thesis prepared for the master’s degree in urban design at the Eindhoven University of Technology.
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At the suburban region, the inner fortification belt on both the left side and
right side of the Scheldt is positioned as a pearl necklace that links the various
economic, cultural, recreational, and ecological zones in the region together,
and simultaneously defines the edge of the suburban region. Here the interplay
is built on the ecological hubs and infrastructural artery that the inner fortification
belts provide. In this strategy the traffic artery – the Krijgsbaan – will
become an important public transport and bicycle corridor on both the left
and right side of the Scheldt, with an intermediate connection. The polycentric
development of this region will be carried by the major economic amenities
already present in the suburbs. The radial shape of these carriers will be fixed
in place via an attachment to multi-modal transport hubs at the edge of the
ring zone and inner fortification belt. Thereby, maintaining a certain serving
function and spatial relation to the inner-city. On the left bank, similar structures
will be put in place, although in lower density and more rural, and as the
final phase of the polycentric development.
In the inner-city region, the water element of the fortification system is used to
give thematic direction to the ring park. With the creation of a large inundation
area on the left bank, and a smaller water structure on the right. This allowed
the creation of not only a historic link, but a climatic one as well, as both of
these structures are going to serve in the water system of the city and bordering
suburbs, and the Scheldt. With the addition of the inundation area on the left,
Linkeroever is also able to strengthen its connection to the ecological structure
that is the Scheldt river valley. This large ecological structure and the extension
of the public transport and bicycle corridors, give shape to the expansion of
Linkeroever and the suburbs of Zwijndrecht and Burcht.
Linkeroever is densified and incorporated in the region of the inner-city
through a close reading of Antwerp’s morphological structure, and
reading of Linkeroever’s existing and historical structures. By doing so, an
urban plan is created that brings a familiar and natural extension quality to the
district, that is rooted more robustly in its own history, and the natural development
of Antwerp as a whole. Infrastructurally, the connection between the left
and right is improved through the construction of a new tunnel, that links the
northern and southern sections of the Leien to Linkeroever; effectively creating
a ring around the (historic) centres of both districts.
In retrospect the chosen approach of leaning on the interplay between the set
of the rampart, the traffic artery, and the park, has worked out surprisingly well.
The ability this interplay has to establish connections on a residential, economic,
cultural, recreational, climatic, and historical level is quite powerful. It
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